Ahmad Shah

Ahmad Shah Dara-i-Nur (1970-April 2008), also known as Ben Sharmak (in the autobiography "Lone Survivor") was an anti-coalition militia commander who sought to join the Taliban.

Biography
Ahmad Shah Dara-i-Nur was born in the Kuz Kunar District of Nangarhar Province of Pakistan, and was called a "sinister mountain man" by Navy SEALs soldier Marcus Luttrell. He was known to make forays into the cities and known to have been responsible for several lethal attacks on the United States, always with bombs. He was a commander of around 140-150 armed fighters, but was educated, trained in military tactics and able to speak five languages. He was also known to be one of Osama bin Laden's closest associates.

He kept his troops mobile, moving into or camping on the outskirts of friendly Pashtun villages, accepting hospitality and then traveling on to the next rendezvous, recruiting all the way. His mountain men were unbelievably difficult to trace, but they needed to rest, eat, and drink, and perhaps even wash, and they needed village communities to do all of that. The CIA and the FBI were extremely interested in his capture or death, and by June 2005 there was an 80-troop minimum and 200-troop maximum for his army.

That month, the US began Operation Red Wings, hoping to verify Ahmad Shah and find out about the location of Osama. The Navy SEALs fought bravely, but were overwhelmed and only one soldier, Marcus Luttrell, survived the onslaught, which left 50-100 of Shah's militiamen dead. In the end, Shah had only 35 men in the aftermath of the operation. He fled to Pakistan, escaping the US area of jurisdiction.

Death
In April 2008 Shah was killed in a shootout with Pakistani police as he traveled with a kidnapped trader. He was believed to be on his way to the Frontier Province along the Afghan border. Shah reportedly kidnapped the trader from a camp for Afghan refugees in Pakistan and was trying to transport him back to the border when he failed to stop at a checkpoint. Shah opened fire on the police and he was killed in the exchange of gunfire that followed.